Pathfinder 1E Hide in Plain Sight = poor man's invisibility?

[Tharkon]

I just noticed something interesting.

The Hide in Plain Sight ability of a shadowdancer does not work the same as that of a level 17 ranger.

The ranger requires being in a favored terrain (or any natural terrain in 3.5) and the shadowdancer needs to be near dim light.

Additionally the shadowdancer's ability adds the following:

A shadowdancer can hide herself from view in the open without anything to actually hide behind.

This sentence is absent in the ranger's ability. This means that darkvision would work against a ranger but not against a shadowdancer.


Going back to the original question though... You'd need the feat Spring Attack, otherwise you'd only be hidden every other turn and would suffer an attack of opportunity every time you went to hide. Additionally since the enemy knows you're out there somewhere and is probably looking in your direction when you come out of hiding, I'm not even sure if they'd be flat-footed.

 

[Empirate]

This was already mentioned and discussed above... in fact, the Ranger's and Shadowdancer's abilities bear he same name, but not much resemblance otherwise.

 

[Ashtagon]

Yep, as empirate noted, it's already been noted.

My view is that as far as the darkvision0-using character is concerned, no shadow exists for him (character-pov subjective interpretation), so the hips won't work against him (but may work against others who don't have darkvision). Others in the discussion say the shadows objectively exist, and so the ability works regardless of special senses others may have.

Really, the discussion reached an impasse a few pages back, and all depends on your interpretation of the metaphysical existence of shadows.

 

[N'raac]

Yep, as empirate noted, it's already been noted.

My view is that as far as the darkvision0-using character is concerned, no shadow exists for him (character-pov subjective interpretation), so the hips won't work against him (but may work against others who don't have darkvision). Others in the discussion say the shadows objectively exist, and so the ability works regardless of special senses others may have.

Really, the discussion reached an impasse a few pages back, and all depends on your interpretation of the metaphysical existence of shadows.

Practically, I think the ability is poorly defined to the point that a ruling is needed for each game, whether "Darkvision sees through the shadows so hips is ineffective" or "Dim light to a Human within 20' allows the Shadowdancer to gather sufficient Shadowstuff to create a "hiding place" even Darkvision cannot penetrate" or something else entirely, based on one's interpretation of how hips operates to permit the user to use Stealth out there in the open.

 

[forrgott]

Wow, this debate sure got technical fast. And fascinating too. I haven't read every line of every post, but I did find a bit of rules material that seems to affect this debate. I'm curious what you guys think. From the "Additional Rules" section of the Paizo PRD:

Characters with darkvision (dwarves and half-orcs) can see lit areas normally as well as dark areas within 60 feet. A creature can't hide within 60 feet of a character with darkvision unless it is invisible or has cover.

So, that seems to state pretty clearly you cannot hide from darkvision without invisibility or cover. I would need to reread HiPS to be sure, but from my interpretation so far, HiPS does not provide invisibility or cover in and of itself, and therefore fails to get around darkvision. But once again, what do you guys think?

 

[N'raac]

Wow, this debate sure got technical fast. And fascinating too. I haven't read every line of every post, but I did find a bit of rules material that seems to affect this debate. I'm curious what you guys think. From the "Additional Rules" section of the Paizo PRD:



So, that seems to state pretty clearly you cannot hide from darkvision without invisibility or cover. I would need to reread HiPS to be sure, but from my interpretation so far, HiPS does not provide invisibility or cover in and of itself, and therefore fails to get around darkvision. But once again, what do you guys think?

I think the argument whether Darkvision's prevention of stealth without cover is, or is not, overridden by HiPS providing the ability to use Stealth while observed, with no cover, remains.

 

[Abraxas]

Wow, this debate sure got technical fast. And fascinating too. I haven't read every line of every post, but I did find a bit of rules material that seems to affect this debate. I'm curious what you guys think. From the "Additional Rules" section of the Paizo PRD:



So, that seems to state pretty clearly you cannot hide from darkvision without invisibility or cover. I would need to reread HiPS to be sure, but from my interpretation so far, HiPS does not provide invisibility or cover in and of itself, and therefore fails to get around darkvision. But once again, what do you guys think?

Check out post 28 in a thread about this over on the Paizo boards. Shadowlord puts together a nice breakdown of why darkvision wouldn't trump HiPS. It also has links to other threads talking about the stealth rules.

 

[Empirate]

[MENTION=83683]forrgott[/MENTION]: The bit of rules text you quoted, while interesting, unfortunately doesn't adress what lies at the heart of the matter of this discussion: can there or can there not be an area of objective shadowy illumination if there's somebody present who can see through it?

Also, one sentence from that ruling is utter stupidity (not your fault of course, just pointing it out):

"Characters with darkvision (dwarves and half-orcs) can see lit areas normally as well as dark areas within 60 feet. A creature can't hide within 60 feet of a character with darkvision unless it is invisible or has cover."

This implies that concealment (a usually sufficient condition for use of the Stealth skill to hide) is always the result of poor illumination. What about other sources of concealment, such as mist, a Blur spell, dense foliage etc.? Whoever wrote that bit of the Paizo PRD ought to think in larger terms than illumination only!

 

[Particle_Man]

Going back to the original question though... You'd need the feat Spring Attack, otherwise you'd only be hidden every other turn and would suffer an attack of opportunity every time you went to hide. Additionally since the enemy knows you're out there somewhere and is probably looking in your direction when you come out of hiding, I'm not even sure if they'd be flat-footed.

That won't be a problem. I am aiming for 3 levels of SD, and so can easily get that either via the combat trick or just spending a feat (since dodge and mobility are already needed to be a SD anyhow).

Thanks for all your replies!